


Birthday

by ButterflyGhost



Category: Sapphire and Steel
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-19
Updated: 2015-01-19
Packaged: 2018-03-08 06:02:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3198116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ButterflyGhost/pseuds/ButterflyGhost
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Saphhire ponders mortality.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Birthday

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spikesgirl58](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spikesgirl58/gifts).



 

It’s her birthday.

 

Well, no. It’s not her birthday. She chose it after all. She’s not particularly concerned about the actual date, but on this day, some many many thousands of years ago, she first encountered a hominid. This day, some many thousands of years ago, a hominid first encountered one of the Elementals.

 

The hominid — Eve, that seems a good name for her — had named her for the blue stone, and Sapphire had been pleased that such a mortal creature understood her nature, without a word having been spoken.

 

So, today is her birthday; the anniversary of Eve’s death.

 

Today Sapphire sits at a kitchen table, facing a middle aged lady. She looks completely unlike her long ago fore-mother, the ancestral hominid, who’s mitochondrial DNA all humans carry. Yet something about her reminds Sapphire of Eve. Most of them don't even see her. This one does. Like Eve this woman doesn’t question her appearance. Like Eve there is recognition in her eyes.

 

 

“I knew your Grandmother,” Sapphire says.

 

 

The woman nods, and drinks her tea, passes Sapphire a slice of cake.

 

 

“It’s my mother’s birthday,” the woman says, then shakes her head, woozily. “No,” she corrects herself with a frown. “No, it’s not.”

 

 

“Who’s birthday is it?” Sapphire asks.

 

 

“Mine.” The woman shakes her head. “No. No, it’s not. It’s…”

 

 

“What is it?” Sapphire’s voice is gentle. She already knows the answer.

 

 

The woman sighs, and drops a cube of sugar in her tea, looks at the cake drying on her plate.

 

 

“Today is the day I am older than my mother ever was. She lived sixteen thousand, one hundred and eighty days. And… three hours, I think.”

 

 

“Three hours, twelve minutes.” Sapphire reaches across the table, and pats the woman’s hand. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

 

 

“It was half a life time ago,” the woman says. “I never thought I’d be this old.”

 

 

“I am older than you are.”

 

 

The woman nods. “I know.” Then, finally. “Why are you here?”

 

 

“I was here for all your mothers,” Sapphire says, “since the first.”

 

 

The woman looks sleepy, then rests her head on the table. Sapphire wonders what it is like for them, when they leave. Do they know what a long shadow they leave behind? She thinks, at this moment, that she should feel sad, that the woman is slipping away. That her particular poison is working through her veins. That she cut herself off, midway.

 

 

But, Sapphire doesn’t feel sad. She feels envy.

 

 

For this woman, Eve is waiting. The Mother has hung on, all these millenia to take her children home.

 

 

For Sapphire, there is only Eternity.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Written for http://element-flash.livejournal.com/ - challenge, Hangover
> 
> Written for Spike's girl, who pimped me back into this fandom.


End file.
